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Rented jeeps from Rocky Mountain Jeep Rentals in Salida, CO and explored the mountains. Taken with an iPhone 15 Pro Max.
Those of you who are kind enough to follow my exploits on a regular basis may remember a tale of near disaster at St Agnes Head in April last year. On that evening events conspired to very nearly lose me an expensive wide angle lens over an Atlantic clifftop when my camera bag decided upon a little adventure of its own and raced off down a steep slope towards oblivion without warning. You can read the story in these pages. I can't, because it still gives me occasional sleepless nights, but suffice to say the lens stopped short of the point of disaster and survived to face another day. In fact I'd only recently decided to purchase it as part of a plan to upgrade to a full frame setup before heading to Iceland three months later.
I knew from YouTube research and the tales of one Mads Peter Iversen, a rather wonderful landscape photographer from Denmark whom I follow almost religiously, that there was a secret beach where you could escape the chaos of Reynisfjara. When you arrive here, you might just find a place to park among the coaches that have disgorged their passengers onto the beach in huge numbers. Iceland may be huge and empty, but there are pockets where you may as well be in Morrisons when the pies have just been reduced to half price. Reynisfjara is one of those pockets, visitors inevitably drawn to its beauty and into our compositions on day trips from Reykjavik.
The secret beach is really only secret because it's camouflaged by a cluster of large rocks to the eastern end of Reynisfjara. It's not always accessible, so you need to pick your moment and keep a close eye on the tide and conditions, but if you can find it, you might just have it to yourself. We did. The first thing you find is that it's a surprisingly tricky place to shoot the Reynisdrangar sea stacks from. The cluster of smaller rocks in the foreground are a challenge to keep contained within the frame and avoid any edge patrol issues. Setting up takes up planning and concentration and can leave a middle aged man who struggles with multitasking vulnerable, something I soon learned to my cost. As I turned my back to fetch the lens cloth from my bag, the tripod succumbed to the shifting shingle under the weight of a heavy Canon DSLR and wide angle lens and toppled over. It was one of those moments that happens in an almost dreamlike manner, the ensemble falling in what seems like slow motion, but the only thing moving even more ponderously is one's own reaction.
Fortunately, (if that's the word for it) all that was damaged was my beloved and much used six stop filter, which shattered and buckled under the fall and wedded itself almost permanently to the thread of the lens. That was bad enough but at least the the lens was still functioning. At least it was until a month later, when 2000 miles further south in Majorca I stood on a very green slipway to photograph a white fishing boat on clear water. But instead of pressing the shutter I described a pirouette which isn't going to earn me a place in "Strictly Come Dancing" any time soon and landed on my elbow, before sliding helplessly on my back towards 4 feet of seawater. Luckily once more I stopped before landing in the water, staring in dazed confusion at a camera that had taken a bump on the concrete as I went down, while a woman shrieked from a balcony above that I was injured. I hadn't noticed. Two Majorcan fishermen nearby interrupted their peaceful lunch and patched up the elbow that was bleeding away as if I'd severed a major artery, yet all I worried about was whether the camera was intact. It's not like I haven't lived by the sea my entire life after all. There's a reason why a slipway is so called, yet lost in the moment I appeared to have forgotten that.
Three calamities all with the same lens. I wonder sometimes whether it's cursed. It used to auto focus almost instantly, whereas now it takes several days, if at all. I really should send it off to be repaired. There won't be a third photograph in this series. The white boat image never really justified the means in the first place if I'm honest.
Happy Friday all.
Total disconnection halfway through. When your feet say enough, any bench becomes the best shelter to kick off your shoes, let yourself go with the rhythm of the city, and simply do nothing. The art of knowing how to stop.
Watching the miles roll by without any rush. Rediscovering the pleasure of train travel aboard the Coast Starlight.
Hermit Thrush's like to spend time in the shadows, so I was happy to see this one hop up onto this rock in some light.
Cuesta Canyon Park, SLO, CA.
Chobe River | Botsuana
I tried out the new "super-resolution" function in Adobes Camera Raw module.
And I'm impressed. :)
Original: 1.172 x 1.172px (9,92x9,92cm / 300dpi)
Super.Res: 9.322 x 9.322px (78,93x78,93cm / 300dpi)
This is a crazy upscaling effect. I actually used the effect 3 times in a row, which is 100% not what you should do, but the result is still very good.
I almost missed it. Too long lingering up on top of the cliffs at Carn Gloose for a composition that was never going to work ended in a mad dash to get to the position I'd intended to be in when the light was doing what I'd hoped it would. Five minutes later and I might have been waiting until the spring before having another crack at it.
I've noticed that one or two of the YouTube photographers I follow were taking snaps on their phones of compositions they'd spotted and making a note to return when the conditions would complete the image. After all, timing is everything. I'd spotted this view as I'd returned to my car on an earlier visit at the end of May to shoot another nearby cottage that I still haven't shared here - although there's a story to that one so I'll get around to it if I could stop producing new material for five minutes.
Dutifully I followed the advice of my influencers and popped a snapshot into a folder entitled "compositions" on my phone before checking the Photo Pills app to find out when the sun would be setting between the cottage and the Brisons. Late September - so either 19 or 26 September to be precise as there's not quite enough time to get here after work as the nights close in. On 19 September there was no sunset to speak of, added to which the place was being rented by some late holidaymakers who were thoughtlessly enjoying their surroundings and unnecessarily populating the shot.
So yesterday I returned, caught between here and Porth Nanven, which sits on the other side of the headland to the south. Such was my indecision that I found myself parking directly between the two on top of the cliff, where I spent some quiet time in the car listening to the Saturday afternoon football commentary on the radio and washing down a hastily assembled banana sandwich with a thermos full of coffee. I then retired to a sunny spot on the rocks overlooking the enormous buttresses of granite that lead down to the sea below, where a lone kestrel hunted and hovered as my only company. The granite crops are known as castles here, although some of them are so enormous, enduring and grand that they remind me of gothic cathedrals. Far out to sea beyond the Brisons I could clearly make out the Isles of Scilly, almost thirty miles away. I've never been, but Lee's wife briefly worked there - she once described the islands to me as two thousand alcoholics clinging to some rocks. Sounds like fun.
Seduced by all of this, and the radio commentator's drooling enthusiasm at the ability of Everton's new star James Rodriguez to thread a forty yard pass through a very narrow defensive gap found me up on top too long, when the shot I'd come for was so clearly on the cards. Three hours after arriving I decided the shot I was attempting wasn't going to work and that if I didn't get on with it I was going to miss the one I'd planned several months earlier.
At least it wasn't going to take me long to set up when I got there, but the idle dawdling turned the last act into a bit of a dash. Even though our visitors were still there I decided it was now or never and threw on the ten stop to add to the drama. When I say "threw on," it wasn't quite as straightforward as it should have been. If a couple of weeks ago you read "Tales of an Old Dog," where I related the various misadventures of my wide angle lens you may be aware that it only takes a filter with some gentle persuasion - followed by some rather more urgent brute force. At least the lens is getting used again - it's the only one that would have worked here.
I have to say I'm quite happy with this one. I've never had a problem with going to somewhere to stand before scenes that a million other photographers have already pointed their cameras at - I do that all the time. After all, why wouldn't you shoot Buachaille Etive Mor, or the Ogwen Valley, or Skogafoss if you're in those locations. Of course you would - you could hardly ignore the beauty of them. But the reason why I'm quite pleased about this shot is that I'm not certain whether anyone else has spotted it before. Maybe I saw it first.
So that final comment will no doubt result in half of you reaching for your phones to call your lawyers before sending me links to your own shots of this peaceful scene. I'll get me coat then.
I'm not really looking to sell my work but this one has generated some interest, so I've put it on my Picfair page for download or print if anyone is interested.
dom-haughton.picfair.com/pics/012149653-the-cottage-at-th...
A beautiful landscape from Utah's badlands. The storm brewing nearby provided some really cool light
nTHAMBO TREE CAMP | GREATER KRUGER
Great sighting, great light and a good example, that some re-work of your pictures could be the right idea with a bit distance to your first development.
This captures the actual mood at the scene much better, than the dull first version.
FANAL FORREST | MADEIRA
What a fantastic location. A forest of up to 500 years old laurel-trees, where you're not really hoping for fog... you more or less expect it to be there. The clouds are driven from the north up the mountains and tend to hang in this forrest.
For sure, you won't get this conditions every time, but we were lucky enough to get the perfect mix of clouds, a bit of wind and not too much rain up there.
And to top this, we stumbled upon this lonely bull, standing on a small clearing and feeding on the laurel-trees. We could hear the cows around us moo all the time, but in the thick clouds, we couldn't see them, until "his majesty" came into sight.
Pico do Arieiro | Madeira Island
Madeira really is an Island for the early birds. You either start to the most eastern part, to get the perfect sunset, but you need to start a good 2 hours before sunrise at least... maybe you prefer the soft light and hope for morning mist in the Fanal forest or like in this picture, you wanna try your luck and hope for a sky full of clouds were you drive through right before sunrise to get this shot.
As you can see, there are always some souls trying to witness this majestic feeling and watching the sun rise through the clouds, as you watch from above.
And YES, it's absolutely worth it starting your day, when most islanders are still asleep.